Kelly Holmes lights the fuse

Interview by Gareth A Davies

12:01AM BST 08 Jul 2008

More than three million secondary and primary pupils in all parts of England took part in the first National School Sport Week last week. But with missionary zeal, Dame Kelly Holmes insisted that “we are not even half way” to bringing sport back into the heart of school life.

While this enthusiastic response was in stark contrast to the results of a YouGov survey, commissioned by Norwich Union, showing that 22 per cent of adults tried to 'skip’ school sports day, the double Olympic gold medallist warned that more work needed to be done to capitalise on the Olympic and Paralympic Games coming to London in four years’ time.

''The take-up nationally was better than I expected, but we have to continue igniting passion for sport in schools,’’ she said. ''We have to push as hard as possible towards 2012.’’

Holmes, who dreamed up the idea of National School Sport Week, took pupils from a Hackney school to meet the Prime Minister last week to impress on him the role sport can play in schools. “We wanted to show the nation just how hard schools, teachers and young people have been working to make positive changes,” Holmes said. “We have seen vast improvements in participation levels.’’ Gordon Brown, in turn, has said that sport should “be back where it belongs - playing a central role in the school day”.

There are plans to have five hours of sport in the school week by 2012. Last month’s survey, meanwhile, found that over a quarter of adults had dreaded sports day at school. Almost a third of women admitted fearing the event, but a quarter of males said school sport helped build their confidence and a third of young adults believed school sport taught them about leadership and teamwork.